An availale place in the cosmos: the mental and the physical in Feigl’s realism

Abstract

This work critically addresses Herbert Feigl's proposal to the mind-body problem within the general framework of his philosophy. For this, we describe succinctly (a) the context of the physicalist theories within which his proposal emerges, highlighting its differences with the positions of Carnap (1932), Place (1956) and Smart (1959), and (b) some relevant elements of the evolution of his own thought, with special emphasis on those elements inherited from previous philosophy that allowed the Austrian philosopher to build his own theoretical framework, characterized mainly by the defense of a “semantic realism” in science. Against this background, we will expose the differences between the central ideas of his 1934 text, centered on the idea o double-language, and his definitive proposal presented in his most influential text of 1958, centered on his theory of double knowledge. Additionally, throughout the article, we support the general view that Feigl's philosophy of mind is a proposal of contemporary value and interest, although not especially original, whose understanding depends notoriously on the more general framework of his philosophy and the traditions that crossed it.